| 2003's debut album from Pedro was met with much critical acclaim thanks to its beautiful psychedelic layering of free folk hop and processed acoustic melody. All of a sudden, Pedro seems stacked up there with the best of them. What originally started as an idea for a remix single snowballed into friends and acquaintances producing an entire album of music. OK - partly thanks to Four Tet's epic 21-minute track. Pedro is London based James Rutledge, who explains what it was like having such luminaries remix his work: "Firstly, I wanted this album to be a really special, first-rate record. Something that you want to come back to. A remix project that has some sort of cohesion. I have never had remixes done before, and decided to ask some of my favorite producers to have a go. These musicians make records that are always in my top-ten lists. Some of the people on there I already knew as friends, or had met at gigs/festivals, so it all came about quite naturally." This isn't the first time that Pedro has been involved with others to create music. Amongst all the My Bloody Valentine revival caused by the Lost In Translation soundtrack, it seems important to remember that James is one of the few people to have actually played guitar on a Kevin Shields track. Whereas more gentle and/or wild collaborations with Kathryn Williams, The Pastels and John McEntire of Tortoise have made him a first-rate hired gun, this remix album sees his music drifting towards the hip-hop inclinations of Prefuse 73, Cherrystones and Danger Mouse, the experimental blast of newcomers Home Skillet and the awesome mixed-bag of Four Tet. As varied as the mixes are, they all seem to capture the spirit of the Pedro sound. Prefuse 73's remix was the first to be completed but took some tracking down: "Apparently, this was done while he was on tour. It came straight out of the back of his MPC sampler. Once Scott had done it, we couldn't work out whereabouts in the world he was, so we had to send out emails to loads of people we knew so we could get the mix off him. I couldn't believe he was doing this mix at the same time as one for The Mars Volta. He's really good at making music leap all over the place, taking tiny bits from loads of genres. A great producer in that respect." "To me, Cherrystones is the best and most overlooked British hip-hop producer, probably due to his extreme open-mindedness. He has this incredible enthusiasm and hunger for new music as well as knowing loads about old stuff. He finds it quite difficult to finish tracks, so I really had to coax things out of him. I first met him about five years ago, and occasionally, if I'm lucky, he invites me round to his flat and makes me compilation tapes." Danger Mouse's remix could quite possibly be the coup of the EP. Thanks to his new-found status from the Grey album, he's possibly the most in-demand hip hop producer at the moment. "I loved the way his music was going down a whole Pete Rock road of production while loads of people were following the Anticon route. There's something about the way he uses samples, which is really exciting and looks forward but still sounds nostalgic. The Grey Album was a brilliant concept, the whole sound of it gave me loads of ideas for future music." Home Skillet is a new project, mainly created by Padraic Mcguire, but also featuring Koushik Ghosh. Koushik is known for his releases on Stones Throw, Kieran Hebden's Text label and vocal duty on Manitoba's "Up In Flames" album. James explains: "I found this track quite confusing at first, but it really stands out because it's so different to anything else around at the moment, it really takes the original somewhere else. I found this really inspiring and can't wait to hear their new material and Madvillain mix." Since Four Tet's breakthrough album Rounds, it seems that Kieran Hebden's work for the great and good has been cropping up everywhere. "I've been a fan of Kieran's music and attitude for ages, and it seemed right to ask him for a contribution. The track sounds like an extended ambient workout but has elements of free jazz and early electronic music. It's really nice to hear him cutting loose." 2004 has been a busy year for Pedro, building a live following out of UK, European and NYC festival dates, DJ sets with the likes of Sunburned Hand Of Man and live shows for BBC Radio 1, 2 & 3. He's also followed penned the music for a batch of Nissan advertisements running on Japanese TV at the moment. - Dotshop |
1XEP/Out Of Print